Jan Wärnbäck Agriculture expert WWF Sweden 2014-‐06-‐04
WWF Sweden – memo from visiting a large scale bio ethanol project in Sierra Leone
Introduction In May WWF took part in a study trip to visit Addax Bioenergy, a Swiss investor with a large scale sugarcane plantation and ethanol factory in Sierra Leone. The trip was initiated by the partly Sida funded initiative African Bioenergy & Biofuels Business Assessment (ABBBA) and co-‐arranged with Addax Bioenergy. During the three day study trip, between the 6 to the 8 of May, the group met with a wide range of stakeholders from villagers, local NGOs, women’s groups, university, police, chiefdom administration, national NGOs, export promotion of Sierra Leone and FAO representation. Adding to this there were also several meetings with Addax Bioenergy personal in charge of various parts of the project like agriculture, social-‐ and environmental issues as well as more technical aspects of the factory itself. There have been a lot of writings in respect to the project and it is obvious that Addax Bioenergy is a project causing debate – both at local, national and international level. Addax Bioenergy themselves have wanted to create a model for responsible large scale agriculture investments in developing countries. To a certain extent Addax Bioenergy has succeeded in doing this but at the same time there are still issues that need to be considered. The following are the reflections from a WWF Sweden perspective where three issues are highlighted in order to better understand the concluding remark drawn on this particular project when it comes to environmental and social sustainability issues. However, first follow some reflections on the issue of large scale investments in general.
Reflexions on large scale investments It is hard to answer more generally to the question if large scale investments per se are good or bad and WWF has no intent to do this. However, it is clear that there is an ideological divide in the mind set of different stakeholders when it comes to these types of investments. Many people and organisations reject these kinds of investments, sometimes on historical grounds, with the argument that land is taken from poor people and not much is given back. On the other hand there are those who see large scale investments as always benefitting development in general and do not want to recognise the challenges.This risk to create an ideological divide without either side sufficiently
Jan Wärnbäck Agriculture expert WWF Sweden 2014-‐06-‐04 acknowledging and listening that there are arguments for and against large scale investment and the balance of pros and cons differ on a case by case basis. To get around historical mistakes and create a model for sustainable agriculture investments the Addax project has made, in comparison to similar investments, a thorough investigation on land owners and mapping of land users in the project area using Geographical Information System (GIS). This information, which is not present in the rest of Sierra Leone, has formed the basis for negotiations and leasing contracts. In this respect Addax Bioenergy is unique in the sense that the company knows exactly who owns the land and also who uses the land. Both land owners and land users (through acknowledgement agreements) get paid rent for the land used by Addax Bioenergy. However, still issues have been raised around the process such as skewed power balance when it comes to negotiation positions. Much of this comes back to the fact that the education and literacy level is low in the area. This makes the power relations an issue to consider. Furthermore, the lease given to land owners and users in the land lease agreement has also been raised as a problem regarding amount paid and gender equality. Also, it seems that Addax Bioenergy at times has had trouble in assessing the local context and acknowledging and valuing existing local knowledge in the villages especially when it comes to agriculture. One of the issues above ought to be possible to solve at an institutional level – the amounts to be paid for rent as this could be stated in national policy or law which would then potentially make it a non-‐issue, assumed that the rent is not on a too low level. At institutional level there are still instrumental tools lacking in Sierra Leone like for instance a Biofuel law and also a lack of implementation of existing regulatory frameworks. There is a guideline developed for sustainable agriculture investments in Sierra Leone in September 2013 however this was never turned in to a more binding policy or law. Furthermore, it is important that national policies, guidance documents and laws are harmonised between the country’s institutions and departments and implemented.
Three environmental and sustainability issues Sustainability aspects There have been a number of assessments made by Addax Bioenergy in the project area before the work started to prepare the land for sugarcane production. In total 14 different studies have been undertaken addressing amongst other things environment, water and social issues. At the same time it is obvious from visiting the area and talking to Addax Bioenergy personnel that there is a lack of strategy on how to follow up on some of the sustainability issues and implement actions to reduce for instance environmental impacts. From the visit three areas are standing out: Eutrophication – the issue has been addressed but Addax Bioenergy has not yet developed a system how to decrease eutrophication and minimise run off to water courses. This in spite the fact that production is ongoing on approximately 5000 hectare of the planned doubled area. Another problem that can be caused by fertilisers is nitrate leaching into drinking and ground water.
Jan Wärnbäck Agriculture expert WWF Sweden 2014-‐06-‐04 Biodiversity – inventories have been made before the clearing for sugarcane. It is however unclear if there is a system in place to follow up on the effects of the sugar cane investment on for instance birds. Also, it is not clear if there are any measures to maintain and increase biodiversity including wildlife around the fields. Forest and biodiversity corridors – In the RSB certification there is a principle relating to conservation. Criterion 7.d states that “Ecological corridors shall be protected, restored or created to minimize fragmentation of habitats.” Addax Bioenergy has left corridors but is at the same time lacking instruments for making sure that these corridors are not being cut down. During the past year since the area has been opened up with roads there has been an increased intensity in land use. People are coming in to the area to make charcoal and there have been increased fires. This includes destruction of corridors. There is a need for Addax Bioenergy to try to find a solution to this. Mitigation measures – FDP/FDS Addax Bioenergy also has what they call a mitigation work outside the gate (i.e. outside the factory) to mitigate the potential negative impact on food security by renting land for sugarcane. The flagship in this work is the Farmers Development Programme and Farmers Development Service. The idea is to not substitute land with land but instead make sure that the people living in the project area are food secure. There have initially been some difficulties with the FDP and FDS. The difficulties are not based on the fact that Addax Bioenergy is developing and educating the farmers in the area but more how this is done. There seems to have been a widespread thought that since the villagers to a large extent been subsistence farmers, not having produced for a market, they have not been real farmers and therefore lack knowledge. Through this preconception several aspects seems to be missing when Addax Bioenergy starts educating the farmers. In the area connected to agriculture the following areas were brought forward, also by the FAO representation, as important aspects to consider: • • •
Traditions Culture Local knowledge
One of the difficulties that have been encountered is connected to Addax Bioenergy ploughing land for the villages to secure enough land for producing food in the project area. There are, in a not mechanised farmer’s eye and even to some extent in a Swedish context, hugh areas being ploughed. The fields can be as large as 90 hectares. Apparently there have been problems to get farmers to weed the sown areas. The weeding is all done by hand. To solve this issue the fields have been subdivided in smaller units in order to identify a specific manageable area to each farmer. One might speculate if the difficulties connected to the FDP could have been avoided if more local knowledge had been use in the design of the programme. One such issue is for instance if the ploughing was done on lands pointed out by the farmers themselves. However, certainly the work with the farmers is a dual learning process both for the farmers and for Addax Bioenergy. Gender aspects The basis of this problem is that all contracts are written and signed by the men in the households which make it a delicate problem from a gender perspective. There is great awareness also in Addax Bioenergy that there would be greater social changes if women in the villages got a share of the land
Jan Wärnbäck Agriculture expert WWF Sweden 2014-‐06-‐04 lease money. One way to get around this could be to form agreements similar to the Acknowledgement agreements but with the women heading the households. However, this would not be guaranteed only by having women signing the contracts, although it could facilitate their access to income Since women are doing most of the work in the fields i.e. being land users, this ought to be possible but could cause social unrest. There were voices raised that this is not something that Addax Bioenergy is responsible for and that the issue should be left to the Sierra Leonean nation to deal with, i.e. pointing at the role of the state to ensure a sustainable development by these investments. However, the people running the country are brought up in the same kind of patriarchal system which will most likely mean that the change will be very slow.
Concluding remark WWF around the world is continuously grappling with conservation challenges stemming from land-‐ use issues. These are among the most complex issues in which win-‐win solutions often are impossible. At the same time WWF, especially in the 100 percent renewable energy vision, see the need for and promote sustainable bioenergy production. Furthermore, WWF is at the moment developing internal Land Use principles that address issues brought forward in investments like the one Addax Bioenergy has undertaken. In this respect Addax Bioenergy is an interesting case in the ambition to be a model for responsible bioenergy investments. At the same time there are a number of issues, some of which are accounted for above, that are potentially conflicting with the long term environmental, social and thus, economical sustainability of the project. It is understandable that the main focus have been on social issues of the investment however as time passes the environmental sustainability issues are likely to be needed to be given more attention. How Addax Bioenergy chooses to approach these challenges will affect the stakeholder support of the project, and the project as such but will also be important in the general debate of large scale land investments.